Forum members discuss their discomfort with mass deportation efforts, debate how federal agents interacted with civilians, and complain about their working conditions.
Photo: Al Drago/Getty Images
Every day, people connect to a online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations Officers (HSI) to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“ERO is too busy dressing up as Black Ops commandos with tactical body armor, flip-up thighs, balaclavas, multiple M4 magazines, and Punisher patches, to make an administrative arrest of a non-criminal, non-violent EWI who weighs 90 pounds and is 5 foot 2 tall, inside a secure federal building where everyone was checked for weapons,” one user wrote in July 2025. (ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations; along with HSI, it is one of ICE’s two main divisions and is responsible for immigrant detention and deportation.)
The forum describes itself as a space for current and prospective HSI agents, “designed for seasoned HSI special agents as well as applicants for entry-level special agent positions.” HSI is the division within ICE whose agents are normally tasked with investigating crimes such as drug trafficking, terrorism, and human trafficking.
In the forum, users discuss their discomfort with the United States’ mass deportation efforts, debate how federal agents have interacted with protesters and the public, and complain about the state of their working conditions. Members also had lively discussions about the shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and how immigration enforcement has been enforced in the United States.
The forum is one of several related forums where people working in different parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) share their experiences and discuss specific details of their work. WIRED previously reported on a forum where current and former ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) deportation officers also complained about their jobs and discussed how the agency was conducting immigration raids. The HSI forum appears to be related, even including some of the same members.
People do not need to prove employment to join these forums, and the platform does not appear to be heavily moderated. WIRED has not confirmed the individual identities of these posters, although they share details that would likely only be known to people intimately familiar with the position. There are more than 2,000 members whose positions date back to at least 2004.
DHS and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.
Following the murders of Good and Pretti, members of the forum were sharply divided. In a thread from January 12, five days after Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a poster who had been part of the forum since 2016 wrote: “In my humble opinion, the situation with ICE operations has reached an unprecedented level of violence from suspects and the general public. I hope the AG considers the temporary suspension of civil liberties (during and in geographic locations where ICE operations are conducted).”
A user who joined the forum in 2018 and identifies himself as a recently retired agent responded: “This is a great idea and well justified. This is organized and well financed civil unrest, dare I say INSURRECTION?!?”
In a January 16 article titled “The Shooting,” some posters took a more nuanced view. “I understand it’s a good shoot legally and all that, but all he had to do was walk away, he almost shot one of his co-stars for God’s sake!” wrote one poster who first joined the forum in March 2022. “A non-criminal USC woman, shot in the head on TV for what? That just doesn’t sit well with me… A veteran SRT guy who was able to execute someone while holding a phone seems to me like he could have just gotten out of the way.” SRT refers to ICE elite special response teamwho undergo special training to operate in high-risk situations. USC refers to American citizens.
“You clearly haven’t been TDY anywhere. Yes they were going to arrest him for 111,” replied another person who joined the forum in June 2018. “Tons of USCs are arrested daily for this.” 111 refers to the portion of the U.S. Penal Code that deals with assaulting, resisting, or obstructing federal officers; TDY refers to “temporary duty,” where officers are assigned to different locations for a limited period of time.
“I can’t believe we have ‘supposed agents’ here questioning the shooting of a domestic terrorist,” wrote a third user who joined the forum in December 2025. (Following the shooting, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called Good a “domestic terrorist.”)
“If you think a fat, unarmed lesbian in a Honda is a ‘terrorist,’ then you’re a fake cop!” » replied the original poster. “I’ve worked on real terrorism cases, and I’m not saying it was a bad shoot and I didn’t defend her. I’m just saying it wasn’t necessary.”
Later in the thread, someone who joined the forum in July 2023 responded: “Remember, these are the same agents who think the J6’ers were just rowdy, misunderstood tourists, and that Ashley Babbitt is a national hero…and if you dare say anything negative about Trump, or try to hold him accountable, you’re suddenly a leftist, communist, crazy (even though I’m a Republican).
In another thread following the assassination of Pretti on January 24 by a CBP Officera poster who has been a part of the forum since 2023 and who also identifies as a retired agent wrote: “Yet another ‘justified’ fatal shooting… They’re all wearing belts and vests with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and the best they can do is shoot a guy in the back.”
The thread morphed into posters debating whether members of the January 6 insurrection were domestic terrorists and why Kyle Rittenhouse, a civilian who shot two people during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, was apprehended alive.
“I just want to mention that we are all feeling heightened emotions right now. But I highly doubt that as a former customs officer you have ever done anything where the risk outweighed the potential for paper cuts,” wrote one user who first joined the forum in June 2025. “It’s a new day with new threats in an environment you never imagined in your career.”
Even before the Good and Pretti shootings, forum members questioned the wisdom of bringing HSI in the Trump administration’s mass mobilization around immigration control. HSI deals specifically with criminal cases and investigations, but living and working in the United States without documentation is a problem. civil offenseand the majority of immigrants who were detained or deported in 2025 had not committed any crimes.
One person complained that this diverted HSI resources from more urgent cases.
“Using 1811s – HSI or otherwise – for administrative immigration enforcement is a complete misuse of resources,” a user who joined the forum in October 2022 wrote in a January 7 post. 1811 refers to a category of law enforcement officers, generally referred to as special agents who conduct criminal investigations. “They could do these crime increases for literally any type of federal criminal investigation (drugs, child exploitation, gangs, etc.), and it would be a much better use of resources. Plus, our reputation would still be intact.”
Other forum members complained about HSI’s relationship with ICE’s ERO teams. “It’s bad enough when the ERO of a major metropolitan city is supported by 30 agencies and they call SA to deal,” wrote one poster on July 7, 2025, who has been part of the forum since 2010. SA refers to special agents. “I guess that’s what happens when they haven’t done any immigration work in decades. »
“Completely opposite in our [area of responsibility]” responded one person who first joined the forum in 2012. “No one has any idea what most eros do and are asking us to be included in everything we do on immigration and to introduce them to DEA contacts working on investigations involving illegal aliens.”
A third poster, a member of the forum since 2024, added that “ERO hardly does anything. I walked into the office the other day and SA HSI were doing prison pickups and processing. ERO people were gathered around a desk, drinking coffee and joking.” In cases where ICE has a request to prisons for a person it is pursuing, known as a detained for immigrationjails will hold that person for up to “48 hours beyond when they would normally release them” to allow ICE to pick them up.
As federal immigration authorities’ operations in Minneapolis approached, members complained about long hours. “How should RHRs participate in TDYs without any days off and with lots of [overtime] “ERO has NO cap.”
“I’m limited, so I only get paid 5 days at 10 hours a day,” the user who first joined the forum in 2010 wrote in another thread (overtime pay rules can vary from agency to agency). “Anything over 50 hours a week and I work for free.”
Other forum participants said they were waiting for promised sign-on bonuses and expressed disappointment with what they saw in their paychecks. For rehired annuitants, ICE offered a signing bonus of up to at $50,000. “I don’t know how they calculated the current salary from the super check received today, but mine can’t be correct,” one person who joined the forum in 2021 wrote in an October post. “My super check brought me a total of $600 more.”
In another thread about bonuses, a user who has been a member of the forum since 2005 responded. “I received a deposit last night or early this morning,” they wrote. “That looks like 10,000 after taxes plus my regular paycheck. I’m not sure yet. However, the deal was for $20,000. WTF?!”
In a December thread, other members discussed how immigration agents had begun interacting more aggressively with protesters. The user identified as a retired agent wrote: “I recently saw There are many videos of HSI or ERO agents triggered by civilians taking photos or videos of them or their vehicles. In several videos, the officers are seen jumping from their GOVs, mauling civilians, and breaking or confiscating their phones.” The user expressed bewilderment at this behavior, writing that he “would have been fired and/or prosecuted for something like that. I think everyone knows at this point that taking photos/videos is a protected act unless someone is in the way or clearly obstructing (which doesn’t always seem to be the case).”
Another person who joined the forum in September 2025 replied: “Ah… Cell phone video. You can make them tell the story you want with creative editing.”
As part of the response to immigration operations, particularly in Minnesota, civilians have organized to monitor federal agentscoordinating to observe and record their operations and sometimes following suspected ICE vehicles, checking the flag groups’ license plates. Federal agents, in turn, were seen taking photos and videos of protesters, with one Maine legal observer saying an agent told him she would be added to a terrorism watch list. (In testimony this week, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told members of Congress that ICE does not compile such a list of U.S. citizens.)
In forum posts, members also complain about their access to the agency’s equipment and technology. “Apparently there is enough money to buy a bunch of ICE marked cars but not enough to get us basic protective equipment,” wrote one user on January 27, who joined the forum in 2025.
“I also suspect that HQ or [executive associate director] “We did not advocate getting equipment to deal with all the crazy protesters,” they wrote in a follow-up article.
On a thread called Alien Processing that started in July 2025, posters were complaining: “How come with all the technology we have and an entire FKN building full of computer geeks, this FKN agency can’t create an FKN system that works properly and efficiently in a simple, user-friendly way? This Eagle shit is a total waste!” wrote one poster. Eagle refers to the Integrated Enforcement Database (EID) called the EID Arrest Guide for Law Enforcement, a system for processing biometric and personal information of people arrested by ICE. “It takes longer to process an fkn alien than it does to actually catch them. We don’t need 10,000 new ICE officers/agents, just hire fkn people to deal with them so we can do our job to catch them.”
Members also talked about their favorite parts of ICE technology: another user, who joined the forum in March 2025, responded to the Alien Processing thread by writing, “Mobile Fortify is the best thing to come out in a long time,” a reference to facial recognition mobile application used by federal agents to identify people in the field.
According to DHS’s 2025 AI Use Case Inventory, officers have been able to use Mobile Fortify since May 2025. The app uses AI, trained with CBP’s “Vetting/Border Crossing Information/Trusted Traveler Information,” to match an officer-taken photo and “touchless” fingerprints with existing records. 404 Media reported that the app had misidentified at least one person – perhaps because, as WIRED says reported, it was not designed to be used for the purposes for which ICE uses it.
Although the rise of ICE in Minnesota appears to be enter a withdrawalthe agency continues to expand your footprint across the United States and invests in a network of detention centers and big warehouses to detain immigrantsall indicating that detentions and deportations are unlikely to slow down.
“Put yourself in the shoes of the guys on the street running at a breakneck pace, threatened and thwarted all day long, having incompetent leadership, low morale, and then having to fight all the formerly low-risk non-criminals (or barely criminals) because they’re all fired up by victimhood and liberal energy. Plus hyper-partisan radicalization on both sides,” wrote the user who joined the forum in June 2025. “If you think the news makes you angry now, wait until spring/summer when we have to fill the mega detention centers. »
Victoria Elliott is a reporter for WIRED, covering platforms and food. She was previously a Rest of World reporter, where she covered disinformation and work in markets outside the United States and Western Europe. She has worked with The New Humanitarian, Al Jazeera and ProPublica. She graduated from… Learn more